July 4, 2023
Rain forced Cherbourg’s annual NAIDOC Week celebration indoors on Tuesday, but it didn’t dampen community enthusiasm for the event.
Cherbourg Town Hall was packed for the activities, which included a blessing by Pastor Max Conlon, the presentation of Cherbourg Council’s NAIDOC Week Awards and a powerful performance by the Wakka Wakka Dancers.
The theme for this year’s NAIDOC Week is “For Our Elders”, and Elders were very much a focus at Cherbourg.
Former mayor Arnold Murray did the Welcome To Country and a special guest was Aunty Eva Collins, who turned 100 at Christmas.
The audience broke into applause when Aunty Ada Simpson, 80, was named Cherbourg’s 2023 NAIDOC “Elder of the Year”.
The former councillor and librarian at Cherbourg State School has volunteered for many years with the Barambah Local Justice Group and at The Ration Shed Museum.
Sadly, she lost her beloved husband of 62 years, Jack, in May this year.
The other NAIDOC award winners were:
- Samantha Cobbo – Special Achievement
- Charmaine Georgetown – Special Achievement
- Norman Pershouse – Special Achievement
- Jackson Cobbo – Special Achievement
- Harmony Clevens – Sports Person of the Year
- Mia Sandow – Youth of the Year
- Natasha Duncan – Artist of the Year
- Ian Bird – Aboriginal Person of the Community
- Cherbourg YAG – Organisation Serving the Community
After the awards were announced, the Wakka Wakka Dancers took over.
Community members then had the opportunity to browse the stalls from the various agencies which lined the walls of the hall while the recently named Barambah CBG Band played on stage.
Cherbourg’s NAIDOC celebrations were scheduled to continue on Wednesday night with a Ball at the Sports Complex organised by the Cherbourg YAG group.
The South Burnett Regional Council has organised NAIDOC activities in the Glendon Street Forecourt in Kingaroy on Thursday morning.
* * *
Cr Bronwyn Murray read out the explanation for the NAIDOC theme:
Across every generation, our Elders have played, and continue to play, an important role and hold a prominent place in our communities and families.
They are cultural knowledge holders, trailblazers, nurturers, advocates, teachers, survivors, leaders, hard workers and our loved ones.
Our loved ones who pick us up in our low moments and celebrate us in our high ones. Who cook us a feed to comfort us and pull us into line, when we need them too.
They guide our generations and pave the way for us to take the paths we can take today. Guidance, not only through generations of advocacy and activism, but in everyday life and how to place ourselves in the world.
We draw strength from their knowledge and experience, in everything from land management, cultural knowledge to justice and human rights. Across multiple sectors like health, education, the arts, politics and everything in between, they have set the many courses we follow.
The struggles of our Elders help to move us forward today. The equality we continue to fight for is found in their fight. Their tenacity and strength has carried the survival of our people.
It is their influence and through their learnings that we must ensure that when it comes to future decision making for our people, there is nothing about us – without us.
We pay our respects to the Elders we’ve lost and to those who continue fighting for us across all our Nations and we pay homage to them.
* * *
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* * *
Wakka Wakka Dancers
[UPDATED]
